Slumping sales at Pizza Hut are hurting Yum! Brands. A sale could allow the company to focus more on KFC and Taco Bell.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul R. La Monica. Other than Time Warner, the parent of CNNMoney, Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie, La Monica does not own positions in any individual stocks.

It's a legitimate question. Yum reported its second-quarter results after the closing bell Wednesday and the company's performance was clearly dragged down by problems at Pizza Hut. Shares fell nearly 7% Thursday on the news.

Same-store sales, one of the most important measures of health for a restaurant company, fell 3% at Pizza Hut. Sales were up at KFC and Taco Bell. Making matters worse, Pizza Hut's operating profits plunged 22% from a year ago.

Brian Bittner, an analyst with Oppenheimer, asked Yum management during Thursday morning's conference call about whether or not Pizza Hut should be sold or spun off if the company does not turn things around. But executives were quick to shoot that talk down.

Yum chairman and CEO David Novak said that "we believe in the power of global brands" and noted that Pizza Hut is doing well in China. CFO Patrick Grismer added that it wasn't long ago that Pizza Hut was on top of the market in the U.S. and it won't overreact to short-term concerns.

That said, Novak and Grismer were both pretty blunt about what needs to be done to get back on track. Both referred to Pizza Hut being in "turnaround" mode.

Novak said he was "obviously disappointed" with Pizza Hut's results -- especially in the U.S., where same-store sales fell 4% -- and that full-year profits would fall short of forecasts. But he added that Pizza Hut will have a new marketing campaign in the fourth quarter and that the company wanted to focus more on millennials.

Grismer added that Yum was not holding back on investments in Pizza Hut and that it needed to boost its digital initiatives in particular -- i.e. making it easier for consumers to order pizzas on their smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.

Novak also urged analysts to try the company's new dessert, an 8-inch cookie that looks like a pizza and features chocolate chips from Hershey (HSY). Let's hope that Hershey's price hike doesn't make the pizza cookie more expensive!

Yum is big on what it calls "innovative" product launches. This is the same company that brought us the infamous Double Down sandwich from KFC and the new "quesarito" from Taco Bell. (I guess "burritadilla" didn't play as well in focus groups.)

But it may take more than culinary gimmicks to fix Pizza Hut. I think there are two big problems facing the company. And they are related. Consumers perceive it to be a stale brand. And there are a lot of other pizza chains out there. Several of my Twitter followers agree.

Ouch. If consumers don't like your product and can easily get something similar elsewhere, that's a bad sign. And Pizza Hut faces really tough competition from pizza pure plays (alliteration is fun!) like Domino's (DPZ) and Peyton Manning's favorite company Papa John's (PZZA).

One follower also suggested that Pizza Hut could differentiate itself from these two (and presumably the scores of other local by-the-slice mom and pop pizzerias throughout the country) by going more upscale.

Now to be fair, Yum managers deserve some time to re-bake Pizza Hut. As the company has noted, it wasn't long ago that it had the biggest piece of the market share pie. And Yum has been a phenomenal company. Just look at how much better it's done than McDonald's (MCD) over the past 5 years. It has outperformed the S&P 500 too.

But one could argue that Yum may also be better off focusing on KFC and Taco Bell instead and not worry about the distraction that is Pizza Hut.

Taco Bell has made waves with the breakfast menu it launched in March. It's a chance to compete more effectively against McDonald's and even Starbucks (SBUX) during that key eating period.

And now that the worst seems to be over regarding a slump in KFC in China, the company can double down (sorry) on its attempt to become an even bigger player in India.

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It probably wouldn't be hard for Yum to find a buyer. Private equity firms seem to have an insatiable appetite for well-known restaurant brands.

Wendy's (WEN) sold its Arby's unit to Atlanta-based Roark Capital Group in 2011. Chuck E. Cheese parent CEC agreed to sell out to Apollo Global (APO) in January. And in May, Darden (DRI) announced it was selling Red Lobster to Golden Gate Capital.

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Golden Gate is a big fan of restaurants. It bought California Pizza Kitchen in 2011.

A Pizza Hut sale wouldn't be the first time Yum unloaded some struggling brands either. It sold the admittedly much smaller Long John Silver's and A&W Restaurant chains to franchisee groups for the two brands in 2011.

So if the new investments that Yum is promising in the fourth quarter don't pan (sorry again) out, then Yum should consider saying "arrivederci" to Pizza Hut.

Reader Comment of the Week! I'm a cranky Gen X-er. So anytime a millennial appreciates one of my prehistoric pop culture references, I get a little less ornery.

Sure, companies unleash a lot of money -- and creativity (sometimes) -- for Super Bowl ads. But it's World Cup spots that get the eyeballs, at least on the web. Since April, viewers spent 1.2 billion minutes on YouTube watching World Cup ads, according to the video-sharing service. That's about four times what they spent viewing Super Bowl ads this year. What's everyone watching? These:

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul R. La Monica. Other than Time Warner, the parent of CNNMoney, Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie, La Monica does not own positions in any individual stocks.

At risk of ticking off fans of the Green Bay Packers ...Vince Lombardi didn't get it entirely right when he famously said that winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul R. La Monica. Other than Time Warner, the parent of CNNMoney, Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie, La Monica does not own positions in any individual stocks.

Are the meals no longer as happy for McDonald's customers as they used to be? The fast food giant definitely seems worried.

McDonald's (MCD) reported lackluster quarterly results last week. And company executives used the words MORE

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul R. La Monica. Other than Time Warner, the parent of CNNMoney, Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie, La Monica does not own positions in any individual stocks.

The stock market is hotter than Tiger Woods' golf game. (Although I don't think he's going to win another green jacket at Augusta this weekend.)

Investing 101: If a stock is priced for perfection, bad news is going to cause a rush for the exits. That definitely was happening with fast food giant Yum! Brands (YUM) on Friday.

Even though the company reaffirmed its outlook for 2013, investors were spooked by an alarming 4% decline in same-store sales in China. Yum has focused heavily on China, particularly through its KFC franchise.

Even the dollar value menu couldn't coax consumers to McDonald's in July.

Same-store sales were flat in the United States and Europe, and sales were down 1.5% throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The house that Ronald McDonald built did try but "promotional activity" couldn't offset the sluggish global economy, the company said in a statement. One bright spot was the most important meal of the day: Breakfast.

When you think about the 4th of July, fireworks, backyard barbecues and Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" (music with cannons!) probably come to mind. And thanks largely to ESPN, the gluttonous International Hot Dog Eating Contest down in Brooklyn's Coney Island has also become a national Independence Day tradition.

The contest has been going on since 1916 at the Nathan's Famous hot dog stand at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues -- MORE